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CTV (Connected TV) Advertising – All You Need to Know

CTV (Connected TV) Advertising – All You Need to Know

Sonal Agarwal
Jun 17, 2024
CTV (Connected TV) Advertising – All You Need to Know

In recent years, viewing habits and the ways in which people consume video content has seen a paradigm shift, where more and more people began cutting the cord (cable) in favor of streaming services and platform. It is a precious few (if any), who still solely depend on cable TV or satellite subscription for their dose of content, as the flexibility of streaming content anywhere and at any time is simply too good to resist.

The rise of OTT and CTV has taken over entertainment, news, sports, and everything else, which in turn has also created a whole new landscape for advertisers to reach a wider audience, ushering in a new era for advertising. Popular examples of CTV include Roku, Fire TV, Apple TV, etc.

Understanding Connected TV Advertising

Connected TV advertising is often used interchangeably with OTT advertising, even though both are obviously quite different. If you look at their examples, CTV advertising is a subset of OTT advertising where OTT refers to the way how content is accessed, while CTV refers to devices that enable the aforementioned access to content, directly through the internet, like game consoles and smart TVs.

CTV devices use the internet to pull content from OTT services and are exactly where a majority of the audience is at most times. This makes connected TV advertising a significant channel for brands to reach their audience where they are. In simple terms, any form of digital ads that appears within streaming content is referred to as CTV advertising. Examples of connected TV ad formats can include ads served alongside shows, within video content, live streams through streaming devices, or even interactive rich media ads that include calls to action for the viewers.

Why Brands & Advertisers Need to Pay Attention to Creative Best Practices for CTV Advertising

The segment of the audience who no longer watch linear TV or have never watched linear TV is increasing exponentially, and to make any kind of impact, brands need to be present where their target audience is. Examples of benefits connected TV ad campaigns have to offer include:

Accessibility

CTV advertising is a dynamic but level playing field that is suitable for all kinds of advertisers and brands. It is not limited to advertisers with huge budgets that ensure great reach. It allows for easier personalization of ads to match consumer profiles for better ROIs.

Enhanced Audience Segmentation & Targeting

With huge amounts of viewer data available, beyond standard demographics, it has become extremely easy for advertisers to target ideal consumer profiles for their campaigns. Some of the best examples of connected TV ad targeting include behavioral, contextual, time-of-day, demographic-based, technographic-based, etc., which enable the adoption of a blended approach to get the best results for an ad campaign.

Performance Measurement

Instead of broad impact measurement metrics, like public opinion, sales data, etc. over extended periods of time, connected TV advertising utilizes programmatic technology that offers advertisers instant access to important metrics like view-through conversions, completion rates, viewability scores, impressions, etc. This also allows advertisers to make adjustments in ongoing campaigns in real-time to ensure better results.

Cost Effective

With hyper-targeting capabilities allowing you to reach a defined audience segment help optimize returns on ad spend. With CTV advertising, it has become convenient for brands and advertisers to reach the right audience at the right time.

All in all, the best examples of CTV advertising come with high viewability and completion rates, which makes them a premium addition to the advertising arsenal in terms of viewer experience and quality.

Getting Started with CTV Advertising

With the amount of data and choices available for targeting, ad formats, CTV platforms, etc., it has become quite convenient to promote your brand to the right audience at the right time, using programmatic, platform direct, or publisher direct approaches.

The crux lies in the creation and execution of ad units and campaigns that you plan to serve over CTV. Creative best practices, ranging from designing the ad unit to strategizing placement and communication, can go a long way in ensuring campaign success.

Designing the Ad

Hyper-targeting of the audience allows for hyper-personalization of ad unit designs as well. For a CTV creative, the best practices include keeping it short (less than 30 seconds with the main brand message in the beginning), having engaging rich media elements with visual and spoken CTAs, direct and clear CTAs, real-time performance tracking to adjust ongoing campaigns, short tests for creative effectiveness, personalized viewer experiences, and above all, delivering not an ad but an ad experience.

Utilize an Ad-Builder’s Capabilities

It is not always easy or even possible for advertisers to produce creatives on the fly for their CTV campaigns, which is why you need to find the right platform to support your strategy. Adctv is one of the fastest-growing examples of CTV advertising platforms that allows you to create addictive brand experiences using engaging ad formats and interactive rich media elements for serving ads across the CTV ecosystem. It requires no technical knowledge, offers dynamic features and capabilities for personalized CTV ad campaigns, and allows access to various metrics to measure campaign performance in real-time.

Some of the top features of Adctv, which make it the perfect partner for you as you venture into CTV advertising, include at-scale personalization with dynamic overlays, real-time reporting, turnkey templates, drag-and-drop ad builder, and universally compliant ad tags that can be used across various types of programmatic ad platforms. The ad builder also allows you to import files directly from PhotoShop which makes the ad build process that much easier. 

Improve the returns on ad spends and drive brand recognition and growth as you optimize the opportunities and reach offered by the biggest screens across the CTV landscape. The creative freedom and ad solutions offered by Adctv facilitate the creation of CTV ad campaigns that foster engagement.

Expand Your Reach the Right Way
The last few years stood witness to the boom in Connected TVs and Over-the-Top platforms, which established themselves as the primary source of video content for a majority of the world’s population. As more people shifted to these platforms as compared to linear TVs, for brands and advertising companies, CTV and OTTs represented new opportunities to reach a new, diverse, and growing audience base. Whether it is brands or advertising companies, integrating connected TV into their digital campaigns can significantly improve the impact of their cross-channel marketing strategies.
Communicate Your Message Loud and Clear with ADCTV
Despite the significant growth OTTs and CTVs have showcased, the platform still has a lot of untapped potential that is just being discovered by brands and advertising companies. OTT and CTV brand experiences can help maximize returns on your dollar spends as your connected TV advertising campaign takes your communication to a variety of channels and platforms across the CTV landscape.Whether you are a brand or advertising companies, OTT and CTV advertising with ADCTV offer top features and capabilities to help you create immersive, interactive, and engaging connected TV advertising experiences. Companies can use turnkey templates, or build their own templates, to build engaging rich media ads for their campaigns, which are created with universally accepted ad tags. Additionally, ADCTV also offers transparent real-time reports that allow you to measure and analyze campaign performance and optimize ROIs.